Necessary Conditions of Learning

Ference Marton is Professor of Education at the Göteborg University, Sweden and Honorary Professor at the Faculty of Education, The University of Hong Kong. He is internationally known for introducing the distinction between deep and surface approaches to learning, for developing phenomenography as a methodology for educational research, and more recently for developing the variation theory of learning. Both the methodology and theory were developed by Marton together with research groups in Sweden, the UK, Australia, and China.

"Marton has provided an outstanding exposition of his lifetime’s thought. Through describing research and teaching in a variety of subjects he exemplifies the theory of learning through discernment of variation. This stimulating and scholarly book acts both as a handbook for design of teaching and teaching materials, and as a basis for understanding more about learning in educational contexts."Anne Watson, University of Oxford, UK

• Preface1. What makes humans human? Cultural evolutionThe species that teaches its offspringThe origin of pedagogyLearning from othersLearning as a by-product and learning as an aim"De-pedagogizing" learningPedagogies of learningTeachers’ professional knowledgeWhat this book is about2. What is to be learned? What matters? Organizing learningWhat is to be learned? Learning as differentiationDifferent meanings of what is to be learned3. Sameness and difference in learningThe problem with direct referenceDiscerning features that have been discerned previouslyDiscerning features that have not been discerned previouslyWe do have to learn to discern features whether or not they are innateLearning to discern novel features and aspectsDimensions of variation, and values* Neither from the specific to the general, nor the other way aroundPatterns of variation and invarianceThe path of learningCritical aspects and critical features againWhy is the experience of difference, against a background of the experience of sameness, necessary for learning to discern novel features and novel aspects?DelimitationGroupingDifferences and experienced differencesDiscernment, difference, simultaneityDiscerning and learning to discernUsing the known to prepare for the unknownThe transfer of learning4. What does the world look like to others? The revelation of Jonas EmanuelssonWhat is to be learned, again: Ways of seeingFinding critical aspectsThe learner’s perspective and the observer’s perspectiveLogic and understandingAsking questionsAnalyzing answersThe idea of phenomenographyQualitative differences in learning, specific to specific objects of learning5. The art of learningLearners generating patterns of variation and invarianceDiscoveries as discernmentsInnovations and the opening up of new dimensions of variationFinding novel meanings6. Making learning possibleThree faces of the object of learningNecessary conditions of necessary conditions of learningThe origin of differencesAnalysing lessonsComparing teachingRelating learning and teaching to each otherBringing about learning: Patterns of variation and invariance as tools for planning and conducting teachingBringing learning about: Implementing patterns of variation and invarianceBringing about learning: The order of thingsHierarchical and sequential structure in reading and writingCan the "art of learning" be learned?There are no teaching experimentsPutting conjectures to the testThe Chinese connection7. Learning to help others to learnWhat teachers have to be good at